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Introducing Sewalongs.com and the start of the Albion Sewalong + companion book!

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Introducing Sewalongs.com, our new home just for sewalongs!

Everyone loves sewalongs, but over time I’ve found that hosting them on our blog has its problems. I’m sure you’ve found this too.

For one thing, unless you pay close attention, it’s easy to get lost, especially when a blog has so much other stuff going on at the same time.

Even worse is the experience of looking up a sewalong later, after it’s ended. They can be a jumble of posts, and you have to spend time figuring out how to piece them back together again. That’s if you can even find all the posts. All this for something that’s supposed to make sewing easier.

So we designed a brand new website just for hosting sewalongs.

  • Find past sewalongs easily: Interested in a sewalong for an existing pattern but don’t want to hunt through the archives? Each sewalong we’ve done is now easy to find, with all the posts and comments still intact.
  • Do them at your own pace: With a clear table of contents for each, you can follow the posts in order at any time. Do a sewalong in realtime with us, or follow along later.
  • Subscribe to current sewalongs: By subscribing via email or RSS, you can get each new sewalong post delivered to you.

Check out sewalongs.com and let us know what you think.

You can also join our Sewalongs Facebook group to share photos and ask questions.

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The Albion Sewalong starts today!

As we’ve mentioned, we’re kicking off our brand new website with the start of the Albion Sewalong.

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This is going to be a super in-depth sewalong, with tons of additional modifications and customization options you can try. Kristen worked really hard on putting all of these lessons together, and I think you will get a lot out of it.

Today, we’re just starting with an intro post. We also moved over the post on fabric and supplies, which you may have read here a couple weeks ago.

Monday will be our first real step as we start the fitting process. So there’s not much to do today except check out the site, start getting familiar, and perhaps start on your muslin if you want to get a head start. See the full schedule here.

You can also subscribe to get the future sewalong posts, which I highly recommend.

The Albion Companion is available!

One thing we’ve started doing with our most in-depth sewalongs is packaging up all the step-by-step materials along with additional techniques and ideas you might use into a lovely downloadable ebook.

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The companion guides are completely optional, and there’s no need to purchase to follow the sewalong. But the companion guide might be a good choice for you if:

  • You want to skip ahead. The sewalong will be posted on a schedule over the course of the month, but having the companion guide gives you access to all the same information and more at once. You can do it at whatever pace you like.
  • You want to flip through instructions on your iPad or tablet. This is one of the things I love best about an ebook format. You can easily flip through the steps page-by-page instead of scrolling, which is a really nice experience while you’re sewing.
  • You want an all-in-one reference. One you download a guide, it’s yours to keep and refer back to for this or other similar projects. The guide contains lots of additional tips and tutorials to reference, all in one place.

Visit Sewalongs.com here and get the Albion Companion Guide here!

Sarai Mitnick

Founder

Sarai started Colette back in 2009. She believes the primary role of a business should be to help people. She loves good books, sewing with wool, her charming cats, working in her garden, and eating salsa.

Comments

emme

January 24, 2014 #

i fricken love this so much.

Emily

January 24, 2014 #

I LOVE the new sew-along site – it’s so much easier – and prettier – to navigate through the sew-alongs now. I will definitely be making use of this a lot (there is definitely a Clover and an Anise in my future now!). Thank you so much!!

Victoria

January 24, 2014 #

Thanks for much for putting this website together and putting all the old sewalongs on it! I’ve wanted to participate in one of two of the past ones but it wasn’t the right time for me, so I am glad that I can easily do them when I want now.

Diane @ Vintage Zest

January 24, 2014 #

Yes! I feel a little spoiled in that this will be my first sewalong and it will be on the brand spanking new website. Thanks!

mari

January 24, 2014 #

What a terrific idea! Now I can do it at my own pace..no guilt – yeah! :0) mari

Amanda

January 24, 2014 #

Brilliant! Thanks for always coming up with great ideas like this. It’s going to be a helpful resource. If you can figure out how to warm up the northeast I’d appreciate that too! ;)

Christine

January 24, 2014 #

AMAZING! well done Sarai and team Colette! and I can’t believe that sewalongs.com wasn’t taken!

Kat

January 24, 2014 #

FANTASTIC IDEA! This is such a great resource, thanks for putting the time and effort in to put it all together. And more pictures of that lovely man too! :P

cathy

January 24, 2014 #

Yay! So nice to have the sewalongs all nice and organized in their own space

Fiona M

January 25, 2014 #

A brilliant idea, thanks!

Lynne

January 25, 2014 #

What a fab idea!! Thank you! :)

Lara

January 25, 2014 #

Wahoo! I cannot tell you how much I appreciate this resource. I am very grateful to be able to learn when life permits, and at my own pace. Many, many thanks!

Shannon

January 25, 2014 #

The new website is so well designed. I just went over to get the narrow shoulder adjustment tutorial from Hawthorn and found it with absolutely no problem. Thank you so much.

Terry Kessinger

January 25, 2014 #

Well, isn’t this the best idea of the year! Super excited! I wanted to do the sewalong for the Cooper, but the timing just didn’t work out. This new site makes me super happy! Thanks so much for brainstorming to continue to be awesome and original!

Laura

January 25, 2014 #

This is SO wonderful! I knew that I wouldn’t be able to participate in the Walden sew along, but really wanted to be able to reference those posts when I do have a chance to make the bag. The new site makes it a million times easier to do that than my previous method of bookmarks and scrolling. Thank you!

Virginia

January 25, 2014 #

It’s nice to see the level of organisation you’re putting into this. I’ve decided this pattern isn’t right for me at the moment but I’ll probably do it later and really appreciate the new layout. :-)

Kelly

January 25, 2014 #

Brilliant!! This is such a great idea. Will you be including other pattern makers as well?

Sarai

January 27, 2014 #

We’d like to eventually. We need to figure out how the logistics on that would work. I have some good ideas, though. :)

Laura Lee

January 25, 2014 #

You really know what to do and how to do it!! It is crisp and clean and really motivating!! Just bought the e-book and what a fun thing to look forward to this week-end! Thanks to everyone at Colette Patterns for keeping me inspired!!

Sarah

January 25, 2014 #

What a clever idea!

Johanne Haugland

January 25, 2014 #

LOOOOOOOVE THIS!!! This is what I’ve been praying for! The perfect website for a newbie- and Colette fan like me =D THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

Anabel

January 26, 2014 #

MAybe a link on the rigth side of the is a good idea…

karpura sanka

January 26, 2014 #

Thank You so much for starting a separate site for sewalongs. Such an easy to remember name too !
Really appreciate having all the past sewalongs posted there as well. I will show my appreciation for the tutorials in the sewalongs (and your blog) by buying more of your patterns!! even though I haven’t completed the ones I bought !
THANK YOU. I Love Colette Patterns

Roni

January 26, 2014 #

This is such a fantastic idea. You’ve written a lot in the past few weeks about wanting to do your own thing and paying more attention to your inner voice, and it really shows. All of you latest projects are fantastic and I like the new direction Collette is taking. I just hope you enjoy blogging more, now that you do what you like, because the posts are great, and us, readers, are lucky :)

Nicole

January 27, 2014 #

YEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lauren of Rosie Wednesday

January 27, 2014 #

This is wonderful!! What a sensational idea. Do you see sewalongs.com expanding to include sew alongs from more than just Colette Patterns? It would be great to see it grow into a larger community effort, although I realize it would have less to do with just your company then!

Sarai

January 27, 2014 #

Yes, I’d love to do that. My dream would be for it to become a place where sewing teachers and designers could run sewalongs of all kinds. I have a few ideas about how we could make it worthwhile for everyone (contributors and readers), but for now I think we’ll need to run a few just ourselves to make sure things are smooth. :)

Retha

January 29, 2014 #

AWESOME website!!!!!!!

Amanda

January 29, 2014 #

What a great idea!! I often find myself following along after the fact, so it’ll be so handy to have easy access to sewalong posts like this :) I’ll definitely be referring to the Cooper one, as I’m making that VERY soon!! :)

Lizzie cuthbertson

February 1, 2014 #

Where have all the project gone. Used to be nice in one place. But now on facebook. Blaha lbalh. Where has the inspiration gone. Used ot love all the variations of Lilly dresses. Now have to trawl through facebook drivel

Sarai

February 3, 2014 #

I think you are confused about something. This has nothing to do with facebook. The only thing that moved was the sewalong posts onto the new sewalongs.com site. There is a FB group to go with it, but it’s optional to join and no content has moved there.

If you’re looking for the gallery of reader creations, that remains at our Flickr group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/colettepatterns/